East of the Sun and West of Fort Smith, a collection of short fiction
written by William Sanders, is massive. Twenty-seven stories massive,
and proof to me that Sanders doesn't get near enough publicity. The
man can flat out write, as I'm sure folks who've read his works can
already attest to; I don't know whether to be embarrassed at only
recently discovering this fact, or elated that with this book I didn't
have to hunt down all his short stories. Norilana Books has
gathered together all of his previously collected short works as well
as a few previously unseen originals here, and in all honesty there's
not a bad one in the bunch. Some may be stronger than others, but at
the risk of repeating myself, they're all good. I'll look at a few of
the shorts a little more in depth below, but there's way too many for
me to include them all.

Sanders, two time winner of the Sidewise Award for Alternate History,
writes a lot of stories featuring American Indians and so the first
story in the collection, "Elvis Bearpaw's Luck", is a good look at
what you're going to get in a Sanders short. Set in a future where
the American Indians have been the ones to survive a plague that has
wiped out the majority of other races, "Elvis Bearpaw's Luck" is
ultimately about what happens when a man named Elvis Bearpaw tries to
cheat at the Game-which turns out to be bingo with very highstakes.
But the subtle way Sanders reveals this alternate future is why I
really enjoyed this one a lot. There's humor, likeable characters and
a well crafted atmosphere that never gets in the way of the story but
gently nudges it along. The ending contains a neat little surprise,
though not so neat for Elvis Bearpaw.

The third story is one that won Sanders the Sidewise Award and was
one of my favorites. "The Undiscovered" is an alternate history in
which Shakespeare winds up in Virginia writing Hamlet for a tribe of
Cherokees. Brought into the tribe as a slave, Shakespeare, or
Spearshaker as they know him, organizes the whole thing in a way the
Cherokees will better understand and relate to. At least, that's his
intent. It's a great what-if story, and again Sanders works subtly
throughout so that the ending is both expected and appreciated.

"Billy Mitchell's Overt Act" posits that Pearl Harbor didn't happen
thanks to the foresight of one man, the father of the US Airforce,
William Mitchell. In fact, as the story goes, the U.S. striking first
actually sets up a very different future for America with regards to
foreign policy. Told through a series of real and fictional excerpts,
"Billy Mitchell's Overt Act" is thoroughly entertaining and a great
piece of alternate history.

In "Jennifer, Just Before Midnight", we get a different kind of short
from Sanders. It's not an alternate history and there are no American
Indians within, rather "Jennifer" is about an author visiting a
convention and meeting his biggest fan. Who his biggest fan turns out
to be I won't give away, but I will say this is a bittersweet story
that stuck with me afterwards. In the afterword Sanders relates that
he wrote this one during a difficult time in his life. The emotion in
the story, especially the end, and the afterword really provides a
solid punch. I don't know that Sanders put the afterword in there to
this end specifically, I rather doubt it in fact, but it reinforces
what I think most readers will take away from this entire collection.
Sanders is one of those authors who tells the truth in his stories, be
that infused with fantasy or not.

"Creatures" was another story that strays from what I think of now as
the standard Sanders story. Set in a future where most of the world
is now immortal and living in the types of bodies that they choose,
"Creatures" revolves around a party that features a creature now
almost extinct from society. A real person. Who ages and everything!
The party-goers are of course horrified that someone would choose to
live this way, and I cringed at their treatment of the woman brought
in for their amusement. There's still humor in this one, but in a way
it's a horror story and, like the best horror stories do, terrified
me. I imagine that if man did find a way to live forever, then the
sad fact is that it would probably resemble the world in "Creatures".

In my opinion the best of the bunch is "Dry Bones". The story is
primarily about the opening up of one boy's eyes to the world around
him, but it just so happens Sanders throws in a cool subplot about
some bones that may or may not be from the future. The young boy
here, Ray, discovers that the people around him are much more
complicated than he'd always believed. Even the discovery of the
bones and the truth that is sitting there in front of all of them
turns out to be more complicated than he could have imagined. It's a
story I think all of us can relate to, the event in everyone's life
where, once past it, there's no going back to the way things were
before. The story is another example of Sanders's versatility and one
I'll be re-reading in the future.

I don't think I can even begin to express how amazing I found this
collection to be, and I hope that anyone with the tiniest sliver of
interest will rush out and get this book today. It's a shame that I'd
only read one of William Sanders's shorts prior to reading this
collection, and I'm still trying to figure out why that is. The guy
is an extremely gifted story-teller and East of the Sun and West of
Fort Smith is all the proof you need. A truly phenomenal writer who
doesn't get the credit he deserves, Sanders is one of the greats.

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